Articles such as coats, hats, towels, drinking mugs, cookware, tools and the like are commonly stored in a more organized fashion on various wall-mounted racks. One very well known form of rack includes pegs extending outwardly from a jointed frame to which they are attached. The joints of this type of frame allow the overall dimension of the frame and the distance between the hooks to be adjusted by permitting the frame s members to move in an accordion-type fashion relative to one another. Such a rack can be adjusted to fit in wide or narrow storage spaces and to accommodate wide and narrow articles. Furthermore, the racks of this type can be completely compacted for increased ease and reduced expense in shipment.
As is more fully elaborated upon in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,287,993 (hereinafter the '993 patent) and 4,488,650 (hereinafter the '650 patent), which patents are hereby incorporated by reference, racks of the type described above were frequently fabricated from a variety of relatively expensive elements, such as wood members, screws or nails, and the like, which necessitated the use of various tools for assembling the racks, as well as numerous fabrication processes to make the elements. My prior patents improved greatly on these older forms by providing a structure whereby a pin joint was constructed by the assembly of three basic components, i.e., one frame member having an open-ended sleeve, another frame member having an integrally formed pin or integrally formed sleeve which is received into the open-ended sleeve and a hook member which holds the two frame members together in a pivotal relationship.
In the track of the '993 patent, the hook member is slid down over that portion of the integrally formed pin protruding through the open-ended sleeve and frictionally engaged thereon, thereby rotatably securing the frame members to one another and presenting a hook from which articles may be hung. However, this structure suffers from the disadvantage in molded plastic embodiments that the hook member, no matter how forcefully hammered into place by an assembler, would frequently become loosened and often disengaged from the protruding pin due to post-assembly contraction of the plastic upon cooling.
Similarly, the rack of the '650 patent is formed by sliding the integral sleeve of one frame member into that of another frame member and rotatably securing the two frame members together by providing the hook member with an integral pin which is inserted into the inner sleeve and held therein by either friction or a mechanical locking device. This arrangement is not advantageous for a number of reasons. Firstly, an article of clothing such as a heavy coat which is hung on the end of the hook member will exert a large amount of force on the integral pin. This can cause an unacceptable amount of product breakage under normal operating conditions and circumstances. Secondly, each joint is comprised of three pieces which must be assembled in an assembly line. Therefore, a ten-hook rack requires the assembly of eighteen components, which is an unnecessarily large number of components. Any reduction in this number of components can result in substantial reductions in the cost of producing the racks.
Additionally, the costs for plastic molding materials have skyrocketed in recent years forcing manufacturers to seek new designs for reducing both assembly costs as well as molding costs. Therefore, any reduction in product density is greatly desired.